Freak

// 14 //

I didn't show Finn how freaked out I was that Beth had a twin. I just shrugged it off but Inside, my stomach was curling with all the weird confused feelings. How had I never met her or even heard of her? How could Beth hide something that huge from me? How big of an asshole did I feel like right now? Finn was planning to stay the night but Alana called to say she was gonna come stay the night so he left. Every relationship I had interfered with another one that had nothing to do with me and that killed me. My friends kept secrets from me, the girl I loved kept secrets from me, my sister kept secrets from me and even I felt like I was keeping something from myself. I knew I had so much more to say or admit but I never did. So as I laid in the cold hospital room alone as law and order blasted from the tiny TV in front of me, I just thought of how much I didn't mean to anyone. I was like a distraction or a way to waste time. I know it's all my fault people don't like me but all this sudden realization got to my head and I decided maybe I could change. I could change for Beth, I could change for Alana, I could change for Finn but most importantly, I could change for myself because I can't live with the idea that everyone thinks I'm a retarded sack of shit.

Alana showed up with chocolate and one of my Layne Staley books.

"Why are you watching Judge Judy?" She laughed and tossed me a chocolate that I proudly caught in my mouth.

"I don't know how to turn the tv off."I lied. Judge Judy was actually really interesting and it's fun to sit back and laugh at other peoples retarded problems. I watched one where the wife went on the show because she thought her husband spent almost all of their disposable income on strippers and prostitutes but she somehow she forgot she spent it on drugs.

Alana grabbed the remote and turned it off and stared at me. "Are you okay?" She asked quietly. Whenever Alana got serious, she went quiet. It was as if her seriousness was a secret and she didn't want anyone to know.

"Yeah I'm fine." I said. I felt like I was talking to the blank plaster wall instead of my sister. I couldn't look her in the eye and lie to her. "You dont have to sleep here, you know?"

"I cant sleep at home. Its too quiet. This place is full of well um crazy people and I hate being around boring normal people." She popped another chocolate into her mouth and flipped to the next page in the Layne Staley book. I concentrated mostly on the pictures, I didn't have the energy to read the tiny printed words despite the fact Layne meant the world to me. Every time I tried to squint to read, my eyes got tired and I felt like falling asleep but Alana was here so I decided against it. The page Alana had flipped to caused a wall of silence to be brought up. "DEATH" was written in thick black letters right at the top of the page along with a black and white picture of Layne in a concert. I hated that as soon as you got to the page about the persons death, all the pictures were in black and white. It seemed disrespectful to me like they looked so lifeless and drained of colour. They deserved to be remembered in beautiful vibrant splashes of colour with smiles painted on their glowing faces. However, black and white was always joined with sadness. I had resiled against reading that page because a) there wasn't anything in that chapter that i didn't already know and b) I was emotionally unstable and that would just be way too much for me.

"What do you mean crazy?" I tried to focus on something other than the book. The flourescnt red light on the TV caught my eye and I counted how many times it blinked before Alana turned to answer me.

"You know where you are, right Zane?" She didn't really look concerned, she just looked embarrassed like I had missed out on something that was so easy to notice.

"Yeah Alana I'm not that dumb." I scoffed and turned the page. Alana didn't even notice, her eyes were glued to me. "Im in a hospital."

"Yes Zane you're in Claremont hospital." She basically shouted at me. Alana tolerated a lot of things but my scoffing and sarcasm pissed her off. When I finally got over the fact that she had yelled at me, I took into consideration what she had just said. But that couldn't be true, what would I be doing at Claremont? 

I remember when I was in third grade we sent letters, get well notes and homemade cookies to the kids at Claremont. We visited them once and the second I stepped out of there, I vowed to never step back in that god forsaken hell hole ever again but, here I was, strapped into one of their beds that had Claremont written in red lettering that I had somehow failed to notice. The things i saw, the people I met and the sounds I heard left scars on my bones that I could never erase. It was horrifying. half of the kids in my class ran out crying or screaming. I was walking alongside Finn down a hallway. We had abandoned the group led by our teacher because it was too boring. We were curious as to why some of our classmates had looks of sheer horror painted onto their faces. Dear sweet jesus, we found out pretty damn well. I can't go into detail because bringing it up would be like reopening healing wounds or scratching a scab off. For the first time in a long time, I didn't hide how I was feeling and screamed. It seemed appropriate considering Claremont was a metal hospital.